WHO WILL TAKE THE FULL LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR PERFORMING THE LEGAL TDS PROCESS?

The Cardiff office had 8.7 full-time staff, including 5.7 Investigating or Senior Investigating Officers at the beginning of 2002-03. In July, a temporary part-time administrative assistant was employed for six months to help with an increasing administrative workload. Senior Investigating Officer on a year’s secondment to the NHS, the number and grading of the Office’s administrative posts was reviewed.

That resulted in a decision to appoint a permanent Administrative Assistant and upgrade the existing Administrative Officer to Casework Manager to provide additional support to the remaining Investigating Officers. During 2002-03 69 new complaints were received, a 23% increase on 2001-02. However nine of these were premature complaints about a single Planning Inspectorate decision. Excluding these, the number of new complaints was only slightly higher than last year. View Detail: TDS Nationwide

The number of complaints received has increased by a small amount in each year of WAO’s existence. It seems prudent to assume that the trend will continue. As in previous years, the complaints received included a large proportion that were not investigable, either because they were not within WAO jurisdiction or had not yet completed the local complaints process. Six new investigations were started during the year, two more than in 2001-02. Seven investigations were completed during the year, the same number as in 2001-02.

This was one less than expected because the issue of one report has been delayed by protracted correspondence with the body concerned about an appropriate remedy. For similar reasons the average investigation time remained about the same as last year, when it has been predicted to fall to 53 weeks. Contrary to expectation, two incomplete cases over a year old remained at the year-end. Because of these two cases, the average throughput is unlikely to fall significantly in 2003-04, although we aim to have no cases over a year old at the end of the year. Although very demanding, the performance target of 100% for screening and replying to new cases not within jurisdiction was missed only because one case was delayed by competing priorities.